Federal Foreign Office in the context of "Zimmermann Telegram"

The German Archaeological Institute (German: Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, DAI) is a research institute in the field of archaeology (and other related fields). The DAI is a "federal agency" under the Federal Foreign Office of Germany.

The Zimmermann telegram (or Zimmermann note or Zimmermann cable) was a secret diplomatic communication issued from the German Foreign Office on January 17, 1917, that proposed a military contract between the German Empire and Mexico if the United States entered World War I against Germany. With Germany's aid, Mexico would recover Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico. The telegram was intercepted by British intelligence.

Revelation of the contents enraged Americans, especially after German State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Arthur Zimmermann publicly admitted on March 3, 1917, that the telegram was genuine. It helped to generate support for the American declaration of war on Germany in April 1917.

The Madagascar Plan (German: Madagaskarplan) was a plan proposed by the Nazi German government to forcibly relocate the Jewish population of Europe to the island of Madagascar. Franz Rademacher, head of the Jewish Department of the German Foreign Office, proposed the idea in June 1940, shortly before the Fall of France. The proposal called for the handing over of control of Madagascar, then a French colony, to Germany as part of the eventual peace terms.

The idea of re-settling Polish Jews to Madagascar was investigated by the French Third Republic and the Second Polish Republic in 1937, but the task force sent to evaluate the island's potential determined that only 5,000 to 7,000 families could be accommodated, or even as few as 500 families by some estimates. As the efforts by the Nazis to encourage the emigration of the Jewish population of Germany before World War II were only partially successful, the idea of deporting Jews to Madagascar was revived by the Nazi government in 1940.

The federal minister for foreign affairs (German: Bundesminister des Auswärtigen) is the head of the Federal Foreign Office and a member of the Cabinet of Germany. The current office holder is Johann Wadephul. Since 1966, the minister for foreign affairs has often also simultaneously held the office of vice-chancellor of Germany.

Walter Hallstein (17 November 1901 – 29 March 1982) was a German academic, diplomat and statesman who was the first president of the Commission of the European Economic Community and one of the founding fathers of the European Union.

Hallstein began his academic career in the 1920s Weimar Republic and became Germany's youngest law professor in 1930, at the age of 29. During World War II he served as a First Lieutenant in the German Army in France. Captured by American troops in 1944, he spent the rest of the war in a prisoner-of-war camp in the United States, where he organised a "camp university" for his fellow soldiers. After the war he returned to Germany and continued his academic career; he became rector of the University of Frankfurt in 1946 and spent a year as a visiting professor at Georgetown University from 1948. In 1950 he was recruited to a diplomatic career, becoming the leading civil servant at the German Foreign Office, where he gave his name to the Hallstein Doctrine, West Germany's policy of isolating East Germany diplomatically.